I'm trying to set up my husband with calibre on his computer (32-bit win7 box, most current version of calibre). He downloaded a book that opens just fine in K4PC, but when we try to add it to his calibre database, the Adding screen comes up and just sits there - no progress meter, nothing happens.

I remember vaguely that there's something that I need to do to make sure his instance of calibre can deal with azw files, but I don't remember what it is.

He downloaded another book, a free one from Amazon (Treasure Island) that came across in AZW format, and loads into calibre just fine.

Can anyone suggest things that I ought to be doing that I'm not?

Thanks!

(there's a Tools issue, too, but I asked that question in the most appropriate spot, and know better than to ask it here.)

OK, the problem is solved. Turns out it wasn't a Tools issue, but a corrupted book file - probably. We tried to re-download the book from Amazon several times, and each time they said it downloaded but it didn't. We called kindle CS, and they forced the download.. and the book came across in HTMLZ format, rather than AZW. That converted to epub and mobi just fine, so we're all set.

OK, the problem is solved. Turns out it wasn't a Tools issue, but a corrupted book file - probably. We tried to re-download the book from Amazon several times, and each time they said it downloaded but it didn't. We called kindle CS, and they forced the download.. and the book came across in HTMLZ format, rather than AZW. That converted to epub and mobi just fine, so we're all set.

When we first tried to load the book we got an error message saying the book was topaz format - isn't that what AZW is? i wonder why it came down as htmlz (as seen in calibre) although the file extension was .azw. Does calibre not work well with topaz?

When we first tried to load the book we got an error message saying the book was topaz format - isn't that what AZW is? i wonder why it came down as htmlz (as seen in calibre) although the file extension was .azw. Does calibre not work well with topaz?

it's funny; I buy books from Amazon all the time, download them to my kindle, run them through Calibre and The Tools, and it works seamlessly. My husband, who isn't quite sure about all of this, had a major problem his first time out. I'll hope that was a one-off, and it'll work seamlessly for him, too. I'm slowly seducing him to the ebook side of the Force.

Yep, just got a Stackpole freebie that was Topaz. Still, the tools handled it fine (ended up with a HTMLZ file).

But how good is the HTMLZ? Have you converted it to Mobi or ePub and looked at it?

Calibre's "conversion" of Topaz uses OCR, and suffers from the problems that any OCR conversion does. Best to leave Topaz in its original form, unless you desperately need to convert it to some other format. There's nothing wrong with a well-done Topaz book - I have some nice ones.